A analysis of over 9,000 Muslims across 16 Western European countries reveals that Islamic religiosity shapes gender attitudes in nuanced ways—challenging right-wing populist claims of one inherently patriarchal Islam.
Right-wing populists across Western Europe have long argued that Muslims do not belong because Islam opposes the “core Western value” of women’s empowerment. But a groundbreaking new study published in Frontiers in Political Science turns this simplistic narrative on its head.
The study, titled “The impact of anti-Muslim hostilities on how Muslims connect their religiosity to support for gender equality in Western Europe,” analyzed data from over 9,000 Muslims across 16 countries between 2008 and 2019. The findings reveal that Islamic religiosity shapes support for public-sphere gender equality in far more complex ways than any claim of one essential patriarchal Islam can capture.
Rather than one unified “Muslim view” on gender, the study finds that different dimensions of religiosity—mosque attendance, religious identification, and individual prayer—affect men and women differently and are shaped by the hostility of the social context.
The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Narratives
For years, public debates have portrayed Islam as inherently opposed to gender equality. Quantitative studies comparing Muslims to non-Muslims have often reinforced this view, showing that Muslims on average support gender equality less than non-Muslims, and attributing all differences to the patriarchal effects of Islam.
But this approach misses crucial nuance. The study’s authors argue that “there is great diversity in the meanings Muslims attach to their religion.” Religious interpretations are not fixed truisms. They arise from active, meaning-giving processes that are gendered, subject to change, and dependent on contextual circumstances.
The study disaggregates Islamic religiosity into three dimensions:
- Mosque attendance (communal religious practice)
- Religious identification (affective belonging to the Muslim community)
- Individual prayer (private devotional practice)
Each of these, the study shows, shapes support for gender equality in different ways and through different mechanisms.
How Different Dimensions of Islamic Religiosity Affect Support for Gender Equality
| Dimension of Religiosity | Effect on Women | Effect on Men | Key Finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mosque Attendance | Negative (reduces support) | Negative (reduces support) | Both men and women who attend mosque more frequently support gender equality less |
| Religious Identification | No significant effect | Negative (reduces support) | Men who identify strongly as Muslim support gender equality less; women do not |
| Individual Prayer | Negative (reduces support) | No significant effect | Women who pray frequently support gender equality less; men are unaffected |
Mosque Attendance: A Barrier for Both Men and Women
The most robust finding across the study is that frequent mosque attendance reduces support for public-sphere gender equality among both Muslim men and women. This effect held across different survey sources, countries, and years.
Why? The authors offer two explanations. First, when Muslims frequent mosques, they are repeatedly exposed to religious services that tend to be relatively conservative on women’s roles in the public sphere. Internalizing these messages lowers support for gender equality. Second, frequent mosque attendance implies stronger integration into conservative parts of the Muslim community, where norms converge through social pressures and sanctions.
Notably, the study did not find that this effect was stronger for women than for men, as initially hypothesized. Both genders are similarly affected.
Religious Identification: A Gendered Story
Perhaps the most striking finding concerns religious identification—how strongly someone feels Muslim. Among men, stronger religious identification significantly reduces support for gender equality. Among women, it has no significant effect.
This gendered pattern suggests that religious identification functions differently for men and women. For men, strong identification may reflect attachment to the Muslim community and its imagined values, which have been constructed in opposition to “Western” values to include traditional gender roles. Men may accept those values because they benefit from traditionalism and do not perceive its harms.
For women, however, strong identification does not translate into opposition to gender equality. Women are more likely to actively question what restricting their public-sphere activities has to do with an Islamic identity. Qualitative studies have shown that women actively search for and apply feminist interpretations to their religion.
The authors conclude that “men who more strongly identify as religious support public-sphere gender equality significantly less, but women do not.” This finding alone undermines any claim that “Islam” uniformly opposes gender equality.
Individual Prayer: Orthodoxy for Women, Not Men
The third dimension—individual prayer outside of mosques—also shows a gendered pattern, but in the opposite direction. Among women, frequent prayer reduces support for gender equality. Among men, it has no significant effect.
Why would prayer affect women but not men? The authors argue that prayer might signify “orthopraxy”—living orthodox religious interpretations through practices. Among Muslims, conservative interpretations prescribe that men should pray together at mosques, not individually. For men, individual prayer may not denote orthodoxy. For women, however, individual prayer is the primary form of religious practice, so frequent prayer may reflect adherence to conservative interpretations, which include opposing women’s roles in the public sphere.
This finding reveals that the same religious practice can have different meanings and effects depending on gender.
The Impact of Hostility: Does Anti-Muslim Rhetoric Backfire?
The study also examined how hostile environments affect the relationship between religiosity and gender equality. Right-wing populists argue that Muslims’ opposition to gender equality justifies excluding them from Western Europe. Ironically, such hostilities could cause Muslims to reject antagonistic natives and their “Western values,” potentially creating backlashes in Muslims’ support for gender equality.
The findings are complex. In more hostile contexts, Muslims generally support gender equality less—suggesting that anti-Muslim rhetoric does indeed backfire. However, the effect of specific dimensions of religiosity varied.
Mosque attendance’s negative effect was not significantly altered by hostility. Muslims exposed to conservative sermons internalize those messages regardless of context.
Religious identification’s negative effect actually weakened in more hostile contexts. This tentatively suggests that when Muslims encounter hostile environments that question their gender attitudes, they may re-imagine community values in a more liberal direction rather than doubling down on traditionalism.
Individual prayer’s negative effect strengthened in some hostile contexts. When Muslims face hostility, some may attach more reactionary meanings to their prayer, or those who pray frequently may be more affected by the general backlash.
The authors note that “our results paint a complex picture, whereby religious identification and prayer are affected by some hostilities but not others, which sometimes beget more feminist effects of religiosity and sometimes more patriarchal ones.”
How Hostile Contexts Affect the Relationship Between Religiosity and Gender Equality
| Hostility Type | Effect on Mosque Attendance | Effect on Religious Identification | Effect on Individual Prayer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostile Public Attitudes | No significant change | Weakened negative effect (more feminist) | Strengthened negative effect (more patriarchal) among women |
| Populist Right-Wing Parties | No significant change | Weakened negative effect (more feminist) | Strengthened negative effect (more patriarchal) among men |
| Harassing Policies (e.g., veil bans) | No significant change | Weakened negative effect (more feminist) | No significant change |
Over Time: European Muslims Are Becoming More Gender Egalitarian
The study also examined changes over time (2008-2019). The results show that European Muslims’ support for public-sphere gender equality has increased over the years. This aligns with qualitative scholars’ arguments about the emergence of a more individualized, progressive “European Islam.”
However, the study did not find consistent evidence that Muslims have increasingly “decoupled” their religiosity from gender values over time. While Muslims have become more gender egalitarian, this does not seem to be because they are interpreting their religion in more feminist ways. Rather, religious attendance, identification, and prayer have on average risen over time simultaneously.
One exception: among men, the negative effect of religious identification on gender equality has weakened over time. Men are slowly starting to decouple their religious identification from opposition to gender equality, as women have already done.
What This Means for Public Debate
This study has profound implications for how we discuss Islam, Muslims, and gender equality in Western Europe.
First, there is no single “Muslim view” on gender. Muslim men and women connect their religiosity to gender equality in different ways. Blanket statements about “Islam” opposing women’s empowerment are factually incorrect.
Second, mosque attendance is the dimension of religiosity most consistently associated with opposition to gender equality. If one is concerned about gender attitudes among Muslims, the focus should be on the content of sermons and community norms in mosques, not on Islam as such.
Third, anti-Muslim hostility backfires. Muslims in more hostile contexts support gender equality less. Right-wing populists who argue that Muslims should be excluded because they oppose gender equality may actually be creating the very outcome they claim to oppose.
Fourth, European Islam is changing. Over time, Muslims have become more supportive of gender equality. Men are slowly decoupling their religious identification from opposition to gender equality. These trends suggest that integration and religious practice are not necessarily in conflict.
Limitations and Future Directions
The study has limitations. It relies on survey data, which captures attitudes but not behavior. It focuses on public-sphere gender equality (political leadership, employment, education) but not other dimensions like domestic division of labor or sexual liberalization. The sample, while large, may not be perfectly representative of all Western European Muslims.
Future research should examine how Muslims’ gender attitudes translate into behavior, explore the content of mosque sermons and community norms, and study the mechanisms through which hostility affects religious interpretation.
A Final Word
The study’s authors conclude: “Islamic religiosities shape Muslims’ support for public-sphere gender equality in far more complex ways than any right-wing populist claim on one essential patriarchal Islam captures.”
This is not an apologist’s defense of Islam. It is an empirical finding based on data from over 9,000 Muslims across 16 countries. The study does not deny that some Muslims hold patriarchal views. It does not claim that Islam has no issues with gender equality. What it shows is that the relationship between Islamic religiosity and gender equality is nuanced, multidimensional, gendered, and context-dependent.
Simplistic narratives serve no one. They fuel prejudice, alienate Muslim communities, and ignore the complex reality of how millions of European Muslims actually live their faith. This study is an important step toward a more accurate, evidence-based understanding.
Reference: here
Other Articles:
